Dance organ
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A dance organ (French: Orgue de danse) is a mechanical organ designed to be used in a dance hall or ballroom. Originated and popularized in Paris, it is intended for use indoors as dance organs tend to be quieter than the similar fairground organ.
Dance organs were principally used in mainland Europe. In their earliest days before the First World War they were used in France, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands. After the First World War their use waned apart from in Belgium and the Netherlands, where they became a mainstream form of music at public venues until the Second World War.[1]
The dance organ came into its own during the early 1900s, with many large instruments built by Gavioli and Marenghi. In the early 1910s the firm of Mortier began expanding out the sound schemes of these instruments with a variety of novel pipework and percussion adapted to the new emerging styles of early 20th century popular music. Other manufacturers such as Hooghuys and Fasano followed suit. Many instruments with older style sound schemes from Gavioli and Marenghi were modernized by Mortier and others either partially or entirely.
In Antwerp, Arthur Bursens built several hundred small roll and book-operated café orchestrions under the trade names "Ideal" and "Arburo" (a combination of Arthur Bursens and (Gustav) Roels). Roels was an early business partner, later succeeded by Frans de Groof. Bursens primarily catered to the smaller cafés in the Antwerp area, which often lacked the space or income to justify a larger Mortier or Decap dance organ. Patrons would drop a coin into a wallbox, allowing one tune from a roll that typically contained three or four tunes to play. At the end of the tune, the roll would rewind, ready to play from the beginning again. To meet the demand for the latest popular hits, multi-tune rolls were frequently produced.
By the early 1920s Mortier were the predominant brand closely followed by Gaudin of Paris - successors to Marenghi. Throughout the 1920s the sound-schemes of the instruments constantly evolved to keep up with the trends of jazz-age dance music. Facade styles also followed the fashions of the era moving progressing naturally from the Art Nouveau towards the Art Deco of the 1920s and 1930s.
In the 1930s the dominance of Mortier was matched by the instruments from the firm of Gebroeders Decap Antwerpen (Dutch for Decap Brothers Antwerp). By the end of the 1930s both Mortier and Decap had reached their zenith both in art-deco facade design and musical abilities. Dance organs came in every size. More compact versions were used in cafes and smaller public venues where they bridged the gap between orchestrions and the giant dance organs. Just like many cafe coin pianos and orchestrions some of the smaller instruments were set up so that they could be coin-operated remotely.
After the Second World War Decap Herentals and Decap Antwerp made further developments to include use of the latest technology and instrumentation ideas. Hammond organ tone generators were incorporated following the trend of popular music into electronic instruments and creating a partial replacement for tone generation via conventional pipework.
In the 21st century dance organs are still being built by a small number of manufacturers. Modern technology in all its varied forms is frequently adapted with the result than many new instruments are wi-fi and midi operable and tones electronically generated to modern standards, have percussion with dynamic playing capability, karaoke systems, volume control and other improvements.
